


Of Beginnings, and All that Follow After

by emeralddarkness



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bittersweet, Gen, Short, Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 06:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3346286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeralddarkness/pseuds/emeralddarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was so easy not to mark the passing of days (or even years, though that would come later) in Valinor, when every moment was perfection stretching into perfection. It was easier still to lose days you had not particularly marked back in the lands that the years flowed free in, when there might have been greater reason to mark them.</p><p>Time passed on in timelessness, and Celebrían let it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Beginnings, and All that Follow After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [die_wiederkehr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/die_wiederkehr/gifts).



> One of my friends loves Celebrían. I love to cause her pain. This is the result of that combination.

It was so easy not to mark the passing of days (or even years, though that would come later) in Valinor, when every moment was perfection stretching into perfection. Every leaf and blade of grass and grain of sand was held in crystalline beauty, nothing faded, nothing died. It was easier still to lose days you had not particularly marked back in the lands that the years flowed free in, when there might have been greater reason to mark them.

Time passed on in timelessness, and Celebrían let it.

She had barely noticed the passage of days at all when she had first arrived, had been so stricken with grief over the loss of her family mingled with the horrors of the orcs that she’d barely been able to notice anything, and that which she had taken note of had been as clouded as a dream. Her memories of arrival and her first few days (or weeks? Or years?) still felt like that, a gray haze through which figures rushed. Her grandfather had been the first to find her when she’d stepped off the boat and onto the white shore, with her grandmother behind, and the first of several golden-haired uncles, who had initially had blended together. Her chief thought had been that none of them had her mother’s hair, with silver mingled in through the gold, but that didn’t surprise her, and she suspected would not have even if unclouded by the haze. Mother was special.

The clouds had lifted, with time, but some days it felt like she was waking up still – so it had been surprising, to find her grandmother sitting on the bed in her mother’s childhood room and staring wistfully at the sea, through nets of pearls. Celebrían had wondered if she’d missed something.

“Grandmother?” she’d finally asked, hesitantly, carefully, shaping her mouth around the unfamiliar tongue that she was only just beginning to understand. They tried to speak Sindarin, for her, but only her uncles had ever truly learned it, and so she had been trying to learn Quenya in sheer self-defense. Her grandparents had been trying to do the reverse, and in the mean time they could usually communicate in a kind of pidgin speech that blended the two together. Eärwen had started slightly at her voice, straightening with a sharpness that suggested she hadn’t been paying attention before turning more gently towards her granddaughter.

“Celebrían.” Her voice was soft, but warm.

“Oh,” she had said quickly, apologetically, fumbling at her words. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

The other elf had stood and taken quick steps quickly over to her in a fluid motion as graceful as a dancer, or a swan, and reached down to take her hands. “No, no, you have nothing to apologize for, you did nothing wrong.”

Celebrían summoned her courage. “I just… I was surprised you were here. You usually don’t…” and then she had trailed off, confused and no longer sure of what she was trying to say. After all, how could she know what was and was not usual? She hadn’t seen it, certainly, but that did not mean very much.

“No,” Eärwen agreed easily, in so casual a tone that they might have been discussing the weather, before Celebrían could attempt to follow this thread of thought back to its beginning. “No, I do not come here to think much, but I was remembering your mother particularly today. She’s already been on my mind more lately than before. You are very like her in some ways,” she said, releasing one hand to gently cup Celebrían’s face. “Though,” she amended a moment later with a slight, musical laugh, “very different in others.”

“But why today?” Celebrían had asked, still slightly confused, and something very melancholy stole into Eärwen’s face.

“It would be hard to forget her, on the day of her creation,” she said, a little wistfully, and Celebrían froze like a puddle.

“Oh,” she said after a moment, a little numbly, “I hadn’t realized what day it was.”

“It’s easy to forget,” Eärwen had said then, quickly, eyes full of concern and kindness. Celebrían had forced herself to smile. It had felt wooden.

“I know,” she’d said. A moment later she excused herself, gently pulling her hand free of her grandmother’s and after fetching a shawl had made her way to the sea, and sat so close to the water that as the tides came in they rushed around her feet, and slowly buried them in sand.

She’d stayed there for the rest of the day, staring blankly at the water, until the sun was on the edge of the horizon, and the sky was beginning to turn purple and blue at the edges. Then, finally, she’d forced herself to stand, and to kick her feet free of the sand as she watched the sunset, in reds and oranges and blues and pinks.

“Happy begetting day, Mommy,” she’d whispered to the sky, and then as the light faded she had turned away from the sea.


End file.
